By Eric Yep
Crude-oil futures edged lower in Asian trading hours Monday as
investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of economic data due later
this week.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures
for delivery in October traded at $92.01 a barrel at 0517 GMT, down
$0.40 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on
London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.50 to $97.89 a barrel.
Both oil benchmarks ended higher last week after two consecutive
weeks of losses, with Nymex October crude gaining 14 cents and
Brent crude for November delivery gaining 43 cents a barrel in the
week ended Sept. 19.
Nymex crude for October delivery is due for expiry later
Monday.
"Prices have been moving sideways, further reiterating our
support for WTI and Brent at support levels of $91.40 and $96.81
respectively," analyst Howie Lee at Singapore's Phillip Futures
said.
He said crude prices will continue to test their respective
support levels and it is unlikely they will rise significantly as
weak global demand has largely been priced in by the market.
Healthy supply levels and softening demand have weighed on oil
prices, offsetting the impact of a recent outage at Libya's 250,000
barrels-a-day Sharara oil field.
"For this week, expect market focus to shift back to more
mundane data-watching ...," OCBC said. On tap this week are
economic data from the U.S. and Europe and China, including
manufacturing data from the world's second largest economy due on
Tuesday.
Meanwhile speculators, such as hedge funds, pension funds and
others, added to bullish bets on crude-oil prices in the week ended
Sept. 16, according to CFTC data. Traders said this may indicate a
fresh cycle of buying after the recent selloff in oil markets.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for October--the
benchmark gasoline contract--fell 138 points to $2.5976 a gallon,
while October diesel traded at $2.7068, 98 points lower.
ICE gasoil for October changed hands at $821.50 a metric ton,
down $1.75 from Friday's settlement.
Write to Eric Yep at eric.yep@wsj.com